


Birth of a Wish

by HoodieTheEdgequeen



Category: Statera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 06:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14050905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoodieTheEdgequeen/pseuds/HoodieTheEdgequeen
Summary: Story for friendsPlz ignore





	Birth of a Wish

[DISCLAIMER: The following piece has descriptive details of emotional abuse, mental damage, torture, and in general is just kind of freaking brutal.]

 

For most of her early life, there were others, almost always others. She was only aware that they had begun to disappear when she was the only one left, at the young age of twelve.  
She was part of a ‘litter’ as her mother called it. She had never seen her father, but her mother was tall, and made of bones, with jagged teeth almost constantly in a smile and great velvety wings that seemed to take up an entire room. Her mother was very tall, and one day, she hoped to be that tall too!  
She was not given a name, she was simply called “Four,” or “Number Four,” or “Test Four.” She only took a name later, when she was old enough to choose one for herself.  
Four spent most of her days playing, often with her brothers and sisters. Her hair was auburn red, and her favorite color was white. Interestingly, one of her eyes was brown, and one was blue. She had a knack for accidentally shocking her siblings, of no fault to her own. Some of her brothers looked like her mother, with short wings and bones for a body. Some looked more like her, with skin and no wings to see. Some had tails, some had feathers. Four, curiously enough, had both.  
Shortly after she turned six, her siblings and her were taken into a strange room. Unlike the carpeted room with the smiling lady who took care of them, this room was cold. The walls were gray and rough, and there were 5 people shaped cardboard cutouts at one end.  
Four and her siblings were told to break them, like they would a toy by accident. They had been punished for breaking toys, so they were reluctant at first, but soon the cardboard cutouts were torn to bits by the kids. Some kids seemed to have fun, others were more reluctant. Four ripped one in half with her teeth and giggled as her mother smiled at her.  
They were returned to the Warm Room, and most of them were given cookies and candies for a whole week, something previously only gotten every so often. A few days later, the brother Four had heard be called ‘Two’ disappeared and didn’t come back.  
A year later, after Four turned seven, they were taken back to the Gray Room. Now there were four cutouts. They were told to destroy them again. The kids, excited to gain more sweets, tore them to bits again. The cardboard cutouts were replaced by people wearing white off to the side.  
This time, they were told to ‘use magic’ instead. Most of them were confused. Magic wasn’t real, they thought it was just in the big, heavy paged books they’d been given. They were told to try anyway. The Brother known as ‘Three’ yelled really loudly, raising his hands over his head, then threw them forward, yelling gibberish like magic words. A gout of fire flew out, burning his cardboard cutout. The people in white wrote something down.  
Excited beyond belief that magic was real, all of the other kids tried really hard. Three made more fire, One threw a wave of frost, Five caused the cutout to crumple. Four, yelling out her best magic words, caused a massive jolt of electricity, creating a huge hole, charred on the outside.  
Everyone seemed surprised, then they were taken back to the Warm Room. Four was given extra cookies, but she never saw One again.  
A year later, they could read and write fully now, but they still were not given names, referred too only by numbers. They began to take lessons, each individualized to a child. Four learned of something called ‘Electrons’ and ‘Atoms’ and how they made up everything. Apparently, Three learned about the transfer of heat and energy, and Five learned of a cool weight called ‘gravity’.  
They were taken, one by one, to the Gray Room again. They were put in the center of the room, surrounded by cardboard cutouts. They all had angry faces on them, and feathery wings like Five had. They were given 2 minutes to destroy all 30 of them. Four tried her best, yelling magic words as fast as she could, and punched holes in 6 of them before running out of time.  
The ones she destroyed were replaced, and she was told to try again, this time without the magic words. So she tried, and destroyed 14, but felt really bad for not using the magic correctly. The cutouts were replaced, and Four was told to try again. But Four was tired, so she didn’t a few times.  
“Try again!” the person in white yelled at her. So she tried again, as hard as she could. She almost fell asleep while doing that, but she managed to destroy all thirty of them. The person in white seemed happy. She fell asleep, since she was very tired. She woke up in her small bed, where only Five was playing.  
Five said he had already gone, and that Three was playing the game with the people in white. Five told Four about how he had tried really hard and crushed all of the cutouts on his second try. Four said that was really impressive, and that it had taken her three tries. Five laughed, Four laughed, and they started drawing pictures.  
But Three never came back.  
Four and Five spent two more years together, almost oblivious to the fact they were the only two left. They were taken back to the Gray Room, but now it was long and narrow, with the people in white standing behind a blue-green tinted window. At the end of the narrow room, there was another cardboard cut out. They were told to use as much magic as they wanted, but to not destroy anything more than it’s nose.  
Five went first, charging up a blast of magic, throwing it forth, and completely imploding the cutout, turning it into a ball of cardboard the size of his thumb. He seemed proud of himself.  
Four went next, charging up magic. She closed one eye, aiming at the cutouts nose, and released all of her magic as focused as she could. There was a blinding flash of light, an impossibly loud boom. When everyone could see, the window was tinted dark, and the Cardboard cutout was missing it’s nose, slightly charred in the surrounding area.  
Four’s mother smiled, then a man in white took her back to the Warm Room. They told her that Five was going to try again. But after a few days, Five didn’t come back. Four noticed how empty the room was. She was scared, not even the Smiling Lady was there. She was all alone.  
Her mother came in one day. Four hugged her and refused to let go until her mother promised to not make her be alone. Her mother smiled and said she wouldn’t be alone anymore. Four was happy, and relieved.  
Her mother took her out of the Warm Room, and led her down the hallway. But she didn’t stop at the Gray Room, instead she took her to a new one. This room also had Gray Walls, but they were soft and squishy. There were a few people in white again, all wearing goggles and with clip-boards.  
Her mother took her in, and sat Four on her knees, going to stand off to the side. A slide opened on the opposite wall, and out walked a puppy. It was small, and fluffy, with a happy doggy grin and wagging tail. Four awed over it, cuddling with it and giving it a hug. It tried to lick her face, causing her to giggle and be pushed to the ground.  
“Do you like the puppy?” her mother asked.  
Four nodded, still giggling, holding the puppy in her arms.  
Her mother smiled at her, but now Four felt something more sinister in it. “Good. Now kill it.” she said, harshly.  
Four stopped giggling, her smile dropped, and she clutched the puppy to her chest, shaking her head.  
“Four, kill the dog.” her mother said, dropping the smile. Four stood up, backing to the end of the room still shaking her head. She didn’t want to kill the puppy! The puppy had done nothing wrong, it didn’t deserve to be hurt.  
Her mother strode toward her, shifting into a more human form with close cropped black hair, yet keeping the same velvety wings. She leaned down into Fours face. “Would you harm anything?” she asked.  
Four shook her head. Nothing deserved to be hurt.  
“Even if they’d done something bad?” her mother asked.  
Four nodded. Nothing deserved to be hurt, no matter how bad.  
Her mother sighed, mumbling something about ‘Plan B’ before grabbing Four’s wrist, and pulling her out of the corner. The people in white crowded around her, pulling the puppy from her, despite her screaming protest. She was forcefully dragged, kicking and struggling, further down the hallway.  
A door was opened, she was thrown into a pitch black room with a hard floor. Her mother slammed the door, and Four was left alone.

Four cried as the whip hit her again, counting the times in her head. Three.  
Crack!  
The seven-tailed whip hit her back again, and she counted to four, feeling each and every one of the seven leather tails scar into her back and have blood pouring from it. A basin behind her caught the blood.  
Crack!  
Four counted to five as the whip hit her again. She would be whipped seven times, once per second, until seven basins were filled with blood. Then, she would be given 28 seconds to rest, the Torturer counting to seven four times as he healed the wounds on her back.  
Crack!  
Six times now, she wanted to scream, but she’d already cried her throat out. All she could do was sit numbly and silently cry as she was whipped over and over. She couldn’t feel the skin on her back. When she was thrown into the black room, even the jagged bits of rock that impaled themselves into her back as she lie on the floor were bliss compared to this.  
Crack!  
Seven times, and the seventh basin filled. She watched numbly as they carried the basins full of blood away, leaving her strung up for a moment as they had a short break. The Torturer counted to seven four times as he healed her, stopping the bleeding but leaving it still raw and burning.

“Kill the puppy.” her mother instructed, again.  
It was a year later, a year of constant torture. Seven whippings. Four Sevens worth of healing. Seven basins. Four Sevens worth of break before the torturers had gotten back.  
It was a new puppy. She stared numbly at it from the spot on her knees. She dimly felt herself shake her head in the negative. She would not kill the puppy. No one deserved to suffer needlessly.  
Her mother sighed, she was thrown into the black room again. She didn’t fight, merely letting herself be dragged there by two people in white.

There was something new. Seven shocks. She was strapped to a chair now, hands binding her ankles, neck, shoulders, and wrists. She felt seven points on her back in the chair, sharp but nothing more than uncomfortable. One below where her neck met her back, and then six more equally distant apart on either side of her spine.  
An ‘assistant’ as she had come to call her tormentors, flipped a switch, and the sharp points gouged themselves into her back like nails. Four gasped in pain, but the pain was almost easy compared to the whip.  
Another assistant flipped a second switch, sending electricity through them. Four felt her entire body seize up as a thousand volts were pumped directly into her nervous system, feeling pain that she had never before. She wanted to scream, to cry, to do anything but be there. She would rather die.  
The pain stopped. It has been one seventh of a second. She was allowed to rest for two-seven second intervals, fourteen seconds. Then she was shocked for another seventh of a second. She felt herself go blind, stopped feeling anything but pain, her entire body being fried.  
She could see now, an Assistant had used her magic to heal her. She was shocked again for another one seventh of a second, then given fourteen seconds of rest. Shock, rest, shock, rest. Whenever she stopped being able to feel, she was healed and it was done again.  
Every seven days she was given shockings. The space in between, she was whipped as before. She learned to love the whips, and dread the shocks.

The Puppy Room again. A new puppy, the same command. Four refused another time, numbly shaking her head, just happy to be away from the pain. Her eyes had stopped being blue and brown. Now they were just a dull, empty blue. Her nerves had been fried so many times no amount of healing could restore the feeling in her fingers. The magic had ‘fixed’ her eyes. She couldn’t feel anything but pain in her back, holes existing where the spikes had been lodged again and again and again.  
Nobody deserves to suffer needlessly. The puppy included. She refused to kill the puppy. She was taken out, thrown into the Dark Room to sleep. She loved the Dark Room. The Dark Room didn’t hurt.

If nobody deserves to suffer needlessly, why was she alive?

Something new was added. She was put in a machine that held her arms and legs in a vice. Then they were crushed for seventy seconds. Slowly. She felt the bones break and shatter into powder, before the vice retracted and her she was healed again.  
Four learned to scream in agony anew. Now, every 7 hours, the rooms were changed. First the whip, then the shocks, then the vice. Then three hours of rest. Then the whip, then the shocks, then the vice. Over, and over, and over and over and over andoverandoveranoveanoveaovaovo--

Puppy room. Kill puppy. Four didn’t even think as she raised her hand to cast magic at the puppy and kill it. But she stopped herself. “No one deserves to suffer needlessly.” It sounded nice. Ten syllables, like the books she had as children said. Ten divided by 2 was 5. Two sets of Five syllables.  
Five was nice. Five was a round number, it could be put in a lot of things. Four remembered the math books that had powers of five. Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty, Twenty-Five. It went forever. Not like Seven. Seven was jagged. Seven, Fourteen, Twenty-One, Twenty Eight. Seven was a bad number. Five was good, five fit. Five had never hurt her.  
Four again refused to kill the puppy.

Something new. Four didn’t even open her eyes to see it anymore. She couldn’t see, not with the shocks. She knew it was too hot, and burned her legs. She didn’t yell or scream, she just sat there as she felt the skin char and be healed on her legs. She didn’t try to walk anymore, she just let herself be dragged to the next room.  
She repeated those ten syllables in her own head, through the pain. “No one deserves to suffer needlessly.” “No one deserves to suffer needlessly.”  
The words flowed so nicely, the syllables were just right. Five was good, five helped the pain not hurt. Five had always been there when she was scared. Four missed five. She hated herself. Why was she Four? Why couldn’t she be Five? Five was good, Five had helped her. Five was good. Five was good Five wasgood Fivewasgood fivewasgoodfivewasgoodfivewasgood--

“Kill the puppy.” her mother said. Four couldn’t see the puppy but knew it was there. She had learned to use her magic to sense things she couldn’t see. Her whole hands were now burned out. The bleeding from her back never stopped. Her eyes had gone from blue to empty, colorless gray. Her burned legs left smears as they dragged her.  
Four didn’t want to kill the puppy. She repeated her mantra, “No one deserves to suffer needlessly.” But… if she killed the puppy, the hurting would stop. Pain was bad, no more sevens. She cried tears she didn’t know she could produce anymore. She refused to kill the puppy.

New. Pain. Cold. Hair falling out. Mantra. One room per day. Every 5 days, two days of mixed rooms. Hurt.

“Kill the puppy.” her mother said.  
Four killed the puppy.

No more hurt. Left in dark room. Green glow. Mother smiled, Mother happy. Pain not there.

She was brought back to the Puppy room. Four was, for once, scared. There was a person there. Four didn’t need to open her eyes to see anymore. It was Five. He was confused, but not as hurt as her. He looked fine, just scared. Four could smell the blood from the whippings on his back. Four knew why. He was an Angel.  
Four’s mother pointed to her. “Five.” she said. “Kill her.” Five looked terrified, a dagger was tossed in front of him. “Kill her, and be the hunter. She did not give up. Show what happens to the creatures who don’t give up for you.”  
Five picked up the dagger, nervously standing to his feet, walking towards the disfigured and mangled Four. He stared at her bleeding back. Her burned legs. Her frostbitten head. Her nerve-dead hands. Her dead, sealed shut eyes.  
Five raised the dagger. Four repeated her mantra. “No one deserves to suffer needlessly.” Five syllables. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five was going to help her. Five was going to make the hurting stop. Five plunged the dagger down.  
Four broke.

She unleashed a pulse of magic, electrocuting Five. Without even moving, she speared him with a bolt of lightning, stopping his heart. Five was dead in an instant. He had not suffered. Everyone gasped, except her mother, who grinned. She walked over to Four, leaning down to stare at the girls slumped form.  
“Do you know your name?” her mother asked.  
Four shook her head. “Your name is Maeve. You are my hunter.”  
Maeve nodded. That made sense. She was a hunter. This is why she had been made to suffer needlessly, so she could truly know how to hunt. She was Maeve.  
“Do you know your purpose?” her mother asked her again.  
Maeve nodded. She felt her Mother grin.

Maeve was dragged to a new room, similar to the puppy room. There was something in here too. The floor was soft. She didn’t know what color the walls were, she couldn’t see.  
She could feel an Angel bound in the center of the room.  
“Kill the Angel.” her mother said, gesturing the bound figure.  
Maeve did not move.  
“Kill. The Angel.” her mother said, more sternly.  
Maeve did not even twitch. Her mother sighed, walking in front of her, leaning down again, squatting on her haunches, roughly grabbing Maeve’s face and pulling it close.  
“You are my hunter.” her mother said, commandingly.  
Maeve nodded. She was a hunter.  
“Do you know your purpose?” her mother asked.  
Maeve nodded. She knew her purpose.  
“And what is your purpose?” her mother questioned.  
Maeve opened her eyes. Her mother felt impossibly scared. They were brown. “To kill those who hurt.” Maeve said. There was a blast of magic, Maeve’s mother was turned to ash. The people in white were vaporized, their electrons disconnecting from their atoms as Maeve molecularly disassembled them.  
The Angels’ chains were freed as Maeve passed out forward.

Maeve woke up, and she didn’t hurt. She could feel with most of her hands. She could see with her blue eyes. Her back, impossibly scarred, with holes that would never heal, had been restored as much as could be to its previous state. Her hair was full again, her skin wasn’t falling off on her face from frostbite. Her legs had been permanently blackened, but they were not charred. It was merely skin pigment now.

She tried to sit up, and Angel rushed to her side, pressing a warm palm onto her forehead. Maeve panicked, shocking the Angel. She remembered how the healing only meant more pain. She killed the Angel by accident, stopping it’s heart with a bolt of electricity. She shoved herself backwards into the corner of the bed she was sitting on.  
Something pushed against the back of her mind. She was sorry. She was sorry. Other Angels were rushing over. They were going to hurt her for killing the Angel. She was sorry, she was sorry. But they didn’t hurt her. They just crowded around her, petting her, touching her gently, getting her to calm down.  
The pressure in the back of her Maeve's’ head burst. She wasn’t Maeve anymore  
she was someone who didn’t want to hurt. She said she was sorry. Over, and over again. Every angel that came to attend to her for five days said it was ok, the Angel was alive. But this new Maeve didn’t believe them.  
She was sorry.  
She was sorry.  
She was sorry.  
She was-

“What’s your name?” one of her caretakers asked. The new-Maeve jumped, she hadn’t been expecting a question. “I… do not have one.” she said, carefully. She had spoken in five syllables. That was good, the way she had spoken was nice. It was rounded. It could flow.  
“Oh?” the caretaker said, questioningly. They were wearing some kind of hooded cloak, she couldn’t see their face. They weren’t part of the regular group. She felt she should be scared, but the cloaked figure was calming.  
“How about…” the figure said, out loud. “How about Maya?” they said. The sentence had five syllables. The name sounded nice. Four letters, like her old name, Four. “I’m… I am Maya.” Maya said, testing it out. She felt it fit. She liked the name. It was a good name. It was her name. She was Maya. She didn’t want to hurt anyone.


End file.
